Posted on 06/23/2015 7:53:38 AM PDT by Enlightened1
could soon pay more to write lengthier books, if you are an author self-publishing on Amazon.com Inc's Kindle ebook platform.
Starting next month, the e-commerce giant will pay independent authors based on the number of pages read, rather than the number of times their book has been borrowed.
The move is aimed at authors enrolled in Kindle Direct Publishing platform – which lets authors set list prices, decide rights and edit the book at any time – and is applicable to ebooks made available via the Kindle Unlimited and Kindle Owners' Lending Library programs.
Self-publishing has transformed what it means to be an author. Simply uploading a document and adding a cover layout to it can turn anyone into a published writer on ebook platforms such as Kindle and Smashwords.
Amazon said on Monday the move would better align payout with the length of books and how much customers read.
"We're making this switch in response to great feedback we received from authors," Amazon said on its self-publishing portal.
Amazon uses a complex method to determine payments for independent authors - payouts are based on a fund, the size of which is set by Amazon every month.
Under the new plan, authors will get a share of the fund proportionate to the number of pages read.
While independent authors have largely embraced Amazon's self-publishing platform, the company has in the past been involved in bitter fights with large publishers.
The company had a stand-off with publisher Hachette Book Group and some authors last year over pricing. The fight ended when Hachette and Amazon reached a multi-year agreement for e-book and print book sales in November.
(Excerpt) Read more at ca.news.yahoo.com ...
We all know the answer to that.
I see a lawsuit in Amazon's future.
this is apparently for the lending library only......not book sales. So the Amazon Prime is not really the applicable comparison.
They’ve already determined how much they’ll put into the author pool on the lending library, this seems like just a shift in how they allocate that money.
Customers are not affected by this at all. I am a self-published author with books in the KDP Select program, so I will be affected, but I’m not sure how it will affect me yet.
Right now, I get paid a set amount every time one of my books is borrowed and read past the 10% mark. This is a standard method of getting paid and does not vary according to the length of the book I have put up. From the beginning, some authors have decried this as unfair, and they certainly have a point.
Someone who has a book that is 500 pages long must have someone read 50 pages before they trigger a “borrow”, but there are many writers who have 30 page books (mostly niche specific erotica) who get paid once someone reads 3 pages of their book.
Considering that a 30 page book would likely not sell well at 99 cents (and earn a 35 cent royalty when it does), these writers are thrilled with the current setup where someone can down load their book, browse in a couple of pages, and trigger the borrow at a rate of around $1.30 - $1.40 per borrow.
With the new system in place, it would be more like this.
(Assuming for math a rate of 1 cent per page read)
500 page book - someone reads 50 pages and stops reading = 50 cents
500 page book - someone reads the entire book = $5.00
30 page book - someone reads 5 pages and stops reading = 5 cents
30 page book - someone reads the entire book = 30 cents
This has nothing to do with how customers will be charged or limited in any way. It is simply a restructuring of how authors are paid when their books are borrowed from the Kindle Online Lending Library.
That’s more or less how the Soviet Union paid authors.
Hence the 1200 page Russian Novel.
That’s an interesting point and one that many authors have brought up, but it doesn’t work in this case. If Amazon paid the authors of longer books more just because the longer book was borrowed, that would be legitimate. But if you wrote a 1200 page book and people who borrowed it only read 20 pages, the author who put out a 200 page book and had people finish it will be paid 10 times as much.
So the motivation returns to writing books people like to read. A shocking sentiment for many writers.
Thanks for that clarification. I have some technical writings I thought might be good to post, but haven’t.
Can an author link to video (my own youtube videos, for example) in books posted to Amazon? I heard Amazon jealously guards its link structure to keep revenue and customers inside their architecture. But it sounds like a great opportunity as well.
Yes, in fact links in e-books are quite common. Amazon is restrictive in not letting you link to a competitor (for example a link to Barnes and Noble or to Walmart), but links to author websites, youtube, google docs, etc. are all common.
In my e-books, I link to my website, my e-mail list sign up, and other books on Amazon.
one very popular author could reduce the amount others get paid by hogging a large portion of the fund leaving less available for the others.
Thanks for that additional information, ASB.
That is very unlikely. The pool of money for the borrow program in May was $10.8 million. With a payout of about $1.38 per borrow, that means that there were about 7,825,000 borrows from the lending library in May.
Even Stephen King would have a hard time generating 250,000 borrows in a single month for a new release. Even if he did, dividing the $10.8 million by 8,100,000 borrows would only lower the rate to $1.33.
Does Taylor Swift write books?... : )
If so then maybe she can boost the amount the authors get.
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